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Maxmara

locationMilan, 21 February 2013

locationMilan, 21 February 2013

RIGHT now the key to any successful wardrobe or fashion label is the ability to combine practical elegance with functional simplicty - a blend of all the key components modern day requires and the two founding principle's of today's autumn/winter 2013-14 <a href=" www.vogue.co.uk/brand/maxmara">MaxMara collection, which also coincided with the grand reveal that actress Hailee Steinfeld will receive its next 2013 Women In Film MaxMara Face of the Future® award. She was of course front row doing her bit.

It's a design team that's behind MaxMara and it's this egalitarian approach that in turn makes it accessible and wearable from the outset - yes you'll see some directional design too (we are at Milan Fashion Week after all), but for the most part what you're taking away is stylistic details off and on classics. And that's how a wardobe moves and evolves.

Today it evolved to oversize and all-enveloping proportions for layered coats that we wanted to pinch straight off the catwalk as the snow began to fall (again) outside (we had this same train of thought back at Belstaff during New York Fashion Week). Volume here was key: shoulders and sleeves inflated and ruched so that you never quite knew if that was in actual fact the wrist of a jumper or a clever panel - it was also a collection inspired by the German Bauhaus movement and style, so just as much as the focus was on a sense of architecture, it was on craft too.

Leather patch panels were stitched into shoulders to smooth them off and contrast to teddy bear textures below and all over. Duffle coats and overcoats were the real winners here - relaxed, elegant yet smart.

Elsewhere there were striped jumper dresses over skirts, which made for a nice styling note and there were sheeny-shiny high neck dresses that didn't work quite so well under those big coats - or perhaps it's because the coats were so good. Granted, they're big and might just need a bit of practise wearing in first - but we are more than happy and willing to give them a try.

In a wider context, it was a continuation of the curved shoulders we've been seeing ever since New York and a collection that tapped into fashion's current fascination with masculine-feminine dressing.